Found No. 18 - Get Your New Year On!

Happy Y2K-10 everyone - may this decade knock last decade's smelly socks off!

Signing off 'til next year - gotta go clean my gun before the clock strikes midnight!
xo bette

Image: From personal family collection c.1975

Life Imitates Art Imitates Life

It has been a New Year's Eve tradition for me and Wally for the last thirteen or fourteen years to prepare a lobster dinner with live lobsters flown in from Maine. They arrive that morning, moving around in their air freight crate, spending their last hours in cold darkness without knowing of their steamy fate.

Wow, writing that makes me almost feel sorry for them.

In 1998, we had just spent all year making our dilapidated condo livable, and were excited to host a New Year's party with about ten of our friends. We would be eating our lobster dinner and then by 11:30pm, we would drive off to The Hideout for the countdown to 1999. I made a delicious New England clam chowder from scratch, rosemary new potatoes, green beans, cornbread and of course, the lobster. Meanwhile, Wally was in charge of entertaining.

Hmmm, this is where the trouble started...and let me preface the following by saying that I certainly have had my over-served moments, but Wally's New Years 1998 was definitely a memorable one...

One of our friends had generously brought Wally a gift - a bottle of Balvenie Single Barrel 15 year Scotch. While I was busy in the kitchen, Wally was having scotch. And wine. And champagne. And as I brought the food to the table, I realized my plight. Wally was really having a HAPPY new year time, and I hadn't even had a drink all night!

Thankfully, we were eating late and when everyone was finished, there wasn't much time left to waste so we all hurried into our winter coats and piled into designated driver's cars .

As with most situations with a car-load of drunk people, they like to sing really loud in the car. I cranked the radio and drove as fast as I could, watching for stoplights and watching the clock. It was taking forever to get across town and we finally pulled up to the bar and ran in as everyone was chanting eight, seven, six...plastic flutes filled with cheap champagne were shoved in our mittened hands.

Happy New Year! Big long kiss! It was time for Bette to get her first real drink of the evening.

So I went to the bar and sat down and ordered a beer. Meanwhile, Wally is strangely walking around in circles. I think, is he looking for the bathroom? I get up to direct him, and he starts to hug the wall. Now I am mad. I put him on a stool and order him a coke. I tell him he had better not move from that stool. I WILL have some fun and he can just sit there!

All our friends are in the back room by the band and I am sitting next to drunk boy, wondering just how long before I have to take him home. He says, I have to go to the bathroom. I tell him, fine, you have 5 minutes. Meanwhile, some oddly familiar girl sitting in the corner all by herself, observing the whole situation, comes up to me and says, Wow, he's pretty out of it, huh? I laugh and say, yeah, sadly - word of advice - don't ever mix scotch and wine and champagne! She laughs, knowingly nods her head and disappears into the other room.

At 12:21 AM, January 1st, 1999, Wally was ready to go home.

Later that morning, Wally awoke to find what was left of his scotch poured down the drain. While I thought this was funny, my Dad, after telling him the story, gave me a ton of grief for being so wasteful.

I found out a few days later that the girl at the bar was Martha Plimpton, who had ironically just filmed the movie 200 Cigarettes, a story about a drunk girl who passes out at her own New Year's Eve party.

Some New Year's Eve Drinking Tips...

The following are derived from not adhering to my Father's sound advice that New Year's Eve is for amateurs. Now that I am a seasoned ex-drinker, I feel I should pass this wisdom onto you...

• Do not drink any combination of beer, wine, scotch or any other mixed drink all at once for many hours in a row.
  
• Do not drink aforementioned lethal alcohol combination on an empty stomach, or after consuming copious amounts of seafood, specifically lobster.
  
• If a guest shows up uninvited, be sure to hide your expensive gin.
  
• Do not attempt to cue up U2's "New Year's Day" song seconds before the stroke of midnight.
  
• If you must sing karaoke at the top of your lungs, please provide your guests with earplugs.
  
• Regardless of what anyone else says, a colander and a flashlight is a good alternative to a disco ball.
  
• Leaving a pair of handcuffs lying around is not a good idea if you do not have a key for them as you may have to cut them off a person who has cuffed themselves to a hot radiator.
  
• Check all hallways and neighbor's doorways for passed-out guests (usually can follow the snoring sound).
  
• Be sure to keep a blanket in your bathroom, just in case you wake up naked the next morning in a fetal position, and a pool of drool in your porcelain bathtub.

The Snow Cap Of My Eye

Way Down South

I started last week out feeling like a giant ball of chaos and ended it feeling extremely chill, even though coming back from the holidays is hectic and I have a million things to do. Wally and I left an impending snow storm in the north for the mild temps of the south last Sunday and spent our first two nights in the land of Cracker Barrels, Walmarts and Gun Shows. Oh yeah, and Smoky Mountains. We rented a posh cabin complete with a electric fireplace (!) and a pool table (!). All to ourselves (!). Since we had arrived in the dark, we didn't get to see the amazing views from our deck(s) until the following morning, and being my first time to this particular part of the world, it was then that I discovered how the mountains got their name.

It was difficult to find a trail that was accessible the next day. The roads were closed due to a snow storm that had passed through earlier that week and supposedly trees had fallen everywhere. A park ranger suggested a nice little four mile trail past a waterfall and up a mountain ridge. It seems as though this was only trail they were telling people about that day, as it was very crowded all the way to the waterfall. Beyond this point, we strapped on our crampons, and continued further up an untouched trail, our footprints laying claim to the 8-10 inches of fresh snow. It was peaceful and strikingly beautiful.

The next day, we left the Smoky Mountains and detoured through North and South Carolina to Georgia. Our goal was to make it to Atlanta early enough to drop off our stuff at Pam and Dan's, change clothes and be on time to our 5:30pm dinner reservations at Woodfire Grill.

Unfortunately, we ran into some serious traffic and drove up to the restaurant at 5:34 with full bladders and remnants of lunch litter. My first words to my dear sister were not of joyful reunion, but "I have a banana and I have to pee!" and with that I carried a banana peel past her and sought out the bathroom.

We had the five-course tasting menu with wine pairings and it was pretty good. This is the place that Top Chef contestant, Chef Kevin Gillespie owns. My favorite thing was a pork belly and quail dish. Mmmmm. Yes. Impressive for sure. (We also checked out that week Top Chef contestant Chef Richard Blais' burger joint, Flip and it was yummy as well).

The next few days were spent playing with NP and Egg and hanging out with my mom and Pam and Dan. The craziest thing about this Christmas was the preparations for Santa, as it seemed not so long ago that my sister and I eagerly awaited his arrival, staying up as late as we could and swearing the next morning we could hear the reindeer's hooves on the snowy roof.

Have A Holly Jolly Christmas!

And don't forget your ugly Christmas sweater!

Sonic Accountant

Before I got into tax accounting, my vision of an accountant was this:

-Big eyeballs behind bigger glasses
-A lot on the heavy side, especially in the lower extremities
-Very, very unfashionable clothing
-Very, very bad sense of quirky humor
-Greasy sausage fingers
-Crusty eye boogers
-An overly active ego
-A cheesy, wood panel office with smoke stains on the ceiling

By golly, I think I have described my first boss (the accompanying photo was found by googling "nerdy accountant" images, seriously!).

Anyway, as a result, I have worked super hard to be the antithesis of my vision and I think I have achieved this, except maybe the humor and the ego part. My friend, Paul, also an accountant and just as gorgeous as me, suggests I change the name of my practice to Glam Tax, and to be honest, I am seriously considering this.

Every year I have to have so many continuing education credits to keep up my license, like most professionals. Attending these day long lectures about tax law is about as exciting as watching paint dry. And when you walk into a room of accountants, the smell of fast food hits you like a Big Mac truck as you are greeted by all those big eyes behind big glasses.

Yesterday, however, the mundaneness of my tax class was replaced by hilarity.

The lesson of the day was built around economic troubles, and while relavent, it was depressing. We had two speakers, Larry and Tim(ster). Larry kept calling Tim(ster) "Handsome", which was confusing, as Larry sounded a lot like Woody Allen, but also talked about his wife and two kids and Jewish mother. It made me a little worried what goes on behind closed hotel room doors. Especially since as we took our first break, Tim(ster) and Larry had something that resembled a lover's spat about how Tim(ster) wanted Larry to tone down the endearing references.

At Larry's defense, Tim(ster), I suppose, could be handsome.

Anyway, Tim(ster)'s voice was about to go out, so he clipped a small microphone to his tie so that everyone in the room could hear him. About half-way through the morning, everyone was complaining about how hot it was in the room (we were in the basement of a Wyndham Hotel, which is so awesome all on it's own), so he left to go get someone to adjust the heat. Meanwhile, Larry began his lecture on the History of Credit, and all of a sudden, we hear this curious sound.

It sounded like, well, like someone draining the main vein. Amplified. Over the loud speaker.

We all looked at each other in shock, with our disbelief soon confirmed believable by the sound of a zipper and the powerful flush of a commercial-use toilet. The Tim(ster) had forgotten to turn his microphone off.

I swear, I almost died laughing. And when Tim(ster) returned, everyone still laughed, for at least another fifteen minutes. One thing all us accountants, big or small waisted, nerdy or hot, could agree on is that, thank God he didn't have to take a dump. It was a Breakfast Club moment, sorta.

Instructional Videos And Silver Surfers

Harbor Contemplates Ice

This cold morning...

Thank You, James Brown

I just spent eight hours listening to the various mundane topics of US taxation and now I am getting ready to go to see Weezer tonight at the Aragon. Yes, two concerts in two weeks. Not to mention a outpatient surgery. And then tomorrow, eight hours of various mundane topics of US taxation.

And the reason I am thanking James Brown is because of that fabulous line from his song, The Payback, that goes, "I don't know karate, but I know KA-RAZY!". And also because tonight is a full moon, and I think, as I look out my window this very moment, there he is, getting down on that big orb of shiny cheese, and laughing his ass off at me.

And I thank James Brown for Mad Libs. Here is a one recently sent to me by Jodi when she was in Nepal and it is a superb example of surrealistic, automatic writing...

And lastly, I would like to thank James Brown for this little gem of a website. It makes me want to shop at Walmart more often.

Disclaimer: The comments made in today's very peculiar blog are due to the obvious exhaustion of the blogger's poor brain and should be taken lightly with a glass of wine, some moon cheese and a little "get on up, like a sex machine".